Memeorandum

April 23, 2013

Bomber Had An M-4 Carbine Rifle - What Are The Odds?

Per the NY Times (and others), the second bomber was captured with some impressive equipment:

Along with determining that the suspects had made at least five pipe
bombs, the authorities recovered four firearms that they believe the
suspects used, according to a law enforcement official. The authorities
found an M-4 carbine rifle — a weapon similar to ones used by American
forces in Afghanistan — on the boat where the younger suspect was found
Friday night in Watertown, Mass., 10 miles west of Boston.

Two handguns and a BB gun that the authorities believe the brothers used
in an earlier shootout with officers in Watertown were also recovered,
said one official briefed on the investigation. The authorities said
they believe the suspects had fired roughly 80 rounds in that shootout,
in which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was fatally wounded, the official said.

Comments

I wonder if the boat guy had a firearm? Most likely not since if he saw the tarp flapping and then the blood, wouldn't it be a normal reaction to grab the gun before climbing the ladder to see what was going on in the boat?

The real M-4: is that the rifle that grunts in Iraq complained didn't have enough stopping power?-- the 5.56NATO round at high velocity would just make little holes in bad guys, but they'd keep on going?

That's the same round fired bt the M-16. I think I recall hearing that there had been some (but not very many) complaints about its stopping power during the Vietnam war. I always thought theywere coming from old-school guys who wanted to hang onto their M-14's, but I don't really know.

The M-16's stopping power with the 5.56 round was enhanced by the fact that the weapon was rifled in such a way that the bullet made slightly fewer revolutions on the way down the barrel, such that it was on the edge of stability in flight. This meant it would tumble when striking a body, delivering all the energy to the target instead of passing on through. I don't really know, but I do know it's a hell of a lot easier to carry around 100 rounds of 5.56 than 7.62.

Played college football with a guy in the late 70s we called 'grandpa' he was getting his college degree at age 30 on the GI bill, He told us this story. In 1967 or so he was a 19yo USMC grunt in Vietnam (CENTRAL HIGHLANDS?) And as the new guy he walked point for few weeks, one day going through a wooded area, he literally bumped into a teenage VC-- standard issue, black pajamas and sandals-- grandpa pulled the trigger on his 1st generation Colt M-16-- jam-- the teen VC then pulled the trigger on his AK-47 (probably Czech made)-- jam. They both ran in opposite directions. Grandpa said every day after that was a free meal as far as he was concerned. Grandpa on being a grunt in Nam in 1967? he didn't like it much.

"a high school science teacher of mine, who had served in Vietnam, talked about on occasion whata carpy weapon the original M-16 weapon was in the field."

A direct unintended consequence of infringing on the rights of citizens to own automatic weapons. Gun enthusiasts would have bought, shot, tore down, tore up, reworked, modified, and fixed the problems with the M16 before, or at least simultaneously with, when it went to war. The fixes would have more quickly worked their way back into design and production. It's similar to how so many vehicle safety improvements over the years have come from the race track.

PS: about grandpa-- one of the sweetest guys I ever met-- I guess that free meal mentality-- and one of the most worldly. He did one tour in Nam and re-uped in the Corps and was stationed in Okinawa in a reserve regiment, that trained but didn't deploy to Nam. he left the Corps a Lance Corporal, and bounced around the Pacific area as an oil rig hand for 7-8 years before coming back to the States-- he said the whole time he was on the oil rigs he kept his standard issue USMC haircut, and he found the cultural changes in the USA between 1967 and 1977 quite jarring, but he liked it. grew his hair out, got an earing and a suede jacket and fit right in with the Disco era.

“Dude, you’re talking to a guy who supports death penalty for cop killers, terrorists… I’m talking about me,” Ball replied. “If you want to talk to the president about his policies, the next time you golf or go play basketball with him, you can ask him.”"

It was all downhill from there.

“What would you do, play cards?” Ball said. “Maybe I should have said it in a British accent. These men killed innocent men, women and children.”

“Can you stop being a jerk?” Morgan shot back.

“You get paid for it,” Ball said.

Ball then reaffirmed that he would torture a suspected terrorist, regardless of citizenship. “That’s very macho,” Morgan said sarcastically. “It’s not about being macho,” Ball replied. “If I wanted to be macho I’d challenge you to an arm wrestling contest.”

MelR-- Baucus retiring I think is a 'tell' that Baucus believes nothing REAL will get done in the Senate with the Obummer/Reid combo-- no tax reform, no entitlement reform, no budget-- so why bother. It is beginning to feel like 2005, when Bush/Iraq and then Katrina pulled down the whole Repub coalition from 1994-- this time Obummer's Leftism and incompetence and the lousy economy he's created are pulling down all but safe Dems. This could be good.

The House has been considering HR 624, the so-called CISPA bill. Although its sponsors assure us that a person’s Internet data would be stripped of personal identification, the bill allows this data then to be used to prosecute certain federal crimes. How could that be? It turns out, the government, having stumbled upon this evidence, can then seek a warrant to obtain the personally identifying information.

This makes it the functional equivalent of the “writs of assistance” used by the English Crown in colonial times. It is antithetical to the Fourth Amendment which requires that before the government can invade your privacy, it must first present a court with reasonable cause to believe you have committed a crime.

This bill effectively allows the government to search through your personal records indiscriminately and then use that information to form the basis of a prosecution.

Cyber security is an important national security issue. But it does not trump the Bill of Rights or the American freedoms our Constitution protects."

I know Clarice. Amazon and Walmart know they can handle the computing requirements where mom & pops cannot. So this will drive more business to the big retailers with IT departments. Ebay, as a coop of many small sellers cannot do that so their model fails.

“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex word where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Maybe what we need most to change are the people currently running the country.

We already have laws and regulations that, had they been followed, would have seen one of the bombers deported four years ago. We had procedures that, had they been followed, would have stopped the underwear bomber at the ticket counter. We had rules that, had they been followed, would have kept most of the 9/11 hijackers out of the country in the first place. And on and on and on.

But rather than enforce and correctly implement the Goddamn rules we already have, and discipline or fire the "professionals" who fail to do so, would-be dictators like Nanny Bloomberg call for ever more laws and powers and strip more freedoms from us, demandinf we place ever more faith in the hands of the very people who failed the last time.

M-4 is either single fire or 3 round burst not automatic. The fire select is safe, single (one shot, one kill), and 3 round burst (shoot and scoot). The only weapon I recall at my unit level that was fully automatic was the SAW (M249?) and that thing sucked to carry on a road march.

The M16 is a compromise. They had to balance power of the round against volume of ammunition.

Also the ease of handling the weapon. Chamber the same weapon in 7.62x51mm NATO, and it'd be impossible for the average guy to handle in full auto. (One of the main complaints against even the much heavier M-14 . . . though I think it's borderline blasphemy.)

The early complaints against the M-16 jamming were before the bolt assist and lined barrels (and cleaning kits). Even by 1980, it was generally considered a very reliable weapon.

Someone needs to stuff a sock in Bloomberg's mouth. Who died and left him boss? I can't wait for his candy-ass to get off the stage. the election in New york can't come soon enough for me. He thinks he has to be the counterpart to Trump just because he has a lot of money. Fix your subway system and collect your garbage and then shut up. We in the rest of the country are sick of the sound of your voice. You are not a player. Your belly up support for gun control nationwide proves this.If you mean what you say about guns,get rid of your bodyguards.

The Bloomberg link; did anyone actually read it? His quote--except for 'interpreting the constitution'-- could have been spoken by GWB, or Cheney or John Yoo in 2002. No new interpretation of the constitution is needed, NannyB is wrong about that. GWB's people implemented surveilance and FISA protocols that protected 4th amendement rights, and Patriot Act Amendments codified those protections. Bloomberg is slapping down the NYC Muzziegrievance industry here. I don't understand the above attacks on NannyB-- he's right here.

A minor bug with the M-16 was (is) that when you fire the first round, the cover over the ejection port pops open, and it stays open until manually closed. If you neglect to close it, the breech is exposed to grit, mud and dirt, leading to stoppages. The best proof against that was simply to make closing the ejection port second nature.

I never fired an M-16 at anything greater than 200 yards, and very rarely at that range. With an M-1 (.30-/06, later 7.62) I felt pretty good out to about 400 yards. The difference in bullet weight is substantial (about 60 grains vs. about 150 grains).

--The internet has been great for small stay at home entrepreneurs through sites like Etsy. What happens with them?-

I suspect a number of third party providers will arise to provide sales tax distributions services, much as ADP does payroll, and paypal does payments for purchases. In fact, I'd expect paypal to add sales tax processing to it's product.

NK: At this point I just don't want to listen to him anymore. I liked it when he told Obama to not come to New York after Sandy. But then Christie gave Bammy a leg up in New Jersey.
I still think many repubs didn't vote because they thought Romney would win without them. The polls overall lied about Florida and Ohio. 79,000 votes was the difference in Florida. How can you get people to stop being stupid?

Janet, simply put, the small guys are screwed. They cannot possibly deal with the literally thousands of jurisdictions that are looking to collect some $20B in new "found" taxes, and every other retailer who (like Amazon and Walmart) can, and every bricks and mortar store (who does not sell on the internet), will be quick to rat out the sellers who are not in compliance. So Big Bro will unleash all of its auditors and all of its minions (like the Hitler youth of old) on this vast swatch of American enterprise.

Alice you are right about the probable rise of third party compliance providers. So now the system will be burdened with a)the tax itself, b)the Visa processing fee, c)the cost of the ADP service, plus d)the manpower inside each small retailer who has to deal with it all.

OL@11:12-- very true-- this is a huge Amazon want. They've opened brick/mortar distribution centers in many states and collect sales tax for those states, now they want the payback-- crushing small nuissance competitors.

In addition to the size advantage, Amazon already has to collect sales taxes because of its physical facilities in most if not all states.--

Amazon was historically opposed to internet sales taxes.

However some time back they committed to a strategy to build massive warehouses all over the country in order to facilitate their coming claim to next day delivery on nearly every order.

Once they decided to brick and mortar the whole country they naturally saw the light and decided to support internet sales taxes.
That it disadvantages their competitors of course is merely serendipitous.

OL, exactly correct on all the fees. There are several sales tax compliance providers to choose from, but set up is a nightmare (classification of a product or service as taxable/non appears) and all liability and audit costs for tax errors also reduce profits.

NK, the difference between Bloomberg and the Bush Admin is that (at least as far as I know/believe) Bush & co. had no interest in being dictators and regulating every aspect of the lives of the citizenry.

Ignatz@11:24-- that is the deal, that's what has happened here. Amazon built Bricks and Mortar in states, signed sales tax collection agreements with those states (in exchange for business tax incentives to build -- mais bien sur!) and now they want payback. AliceH is right that smaller compettiors will hire 3rd party compliance (ADT--sales tax division), but competing against Amazon is hard enough, without that extra fixed cost. This is crony capitalism once again. Just gross.

JiB, if you are around this morning, you mentioned a few days ago that you had worked in SA. Were you involved in construction during the period of mid-70s to late-80s? My FIL had responsibility for all construction over half the Kingdom during that time. He was a tough old buzzard. The Koreans honored him with a formal retirement gift because they had never met someone who could go toe to toe with them.

Someone else mentioned this possibility. Is it possible that it was an M4 and they aquired the weapon from the MIT police officer they shot? I personally am leaning more towards the reporters getting it wrong since I dont think they really care if they get gun nomenclature right.

Bloomberg = "...in being dictators and regulating every aspect of the lives of the citizenry." not true, only the stuff that bugs HIM. so sugary drinks and smoking = CRACKDOWN, billionaire Helo parking anytime anywhere? this is a wideopen town for that...

Remember the tussle last year over a state law requiring giant e-tailers like Amazon.com to begin collecting sales tax on Internet purchases? At first Amazon tried to qualify an initiative measure to overturn it, but then it abandoned that effort and agreed to begin collecting the taxes in September of this year.

Guess what. It turns out much of the money will go to Amazon.

That’s because Amazon is setting up two distribution centers in California, one in San Bernardino and one in the Central Valley town of Patterson, according to the Los Angeles Times. To attract Amazon, officials in both cities agreed to kick back most of their share of sales taxes.

Wait, it gets worse.

Once the distribution centers are up and running, Amazon will be able to designate them as legal “points of sale,” permitting the company to direct 100 percent of the city share of sales taxes statewide—many millions of dollars—to Patterson and San Bernardino. Those cities, in turn, have agreed to pass on as much as 80 percent of the money to Amazon

The M-14 made a big comeback in Afghanistan. They we drawing them out of National Guard armories, even, and a lot of Guardsmen were not happy.

The 14 is a lot heavier and the ammo is heavier and it is more difficult to carry, but it can hit a target at 1,000 yards in good hands. The sniper versions can hit at 1,500 yards.

We did some comparative shooting back in the day; AK vs M-16 vs M - 1 and M-14 and the consensus was for the M-16. Less recoil and larger capacity magazines. For distance the M-14 was best, but the M-1 was an old favorite. AK's are scatterguns.

The M-4 is a lightweight easy to use and very effective ground combat weapon. Haven't seen any full auto versions, as after three rounds the barrel tends to ride up and most shooters can't keep it down.

What this sales tax thing will do is provide the leeches with data on all commerce (like the mandatory 1099s for all vendors that was in ACA but got delayed?), with full point-to-point detail to facilitate things like VAT and command/control of the economy by our betters.

sfcmarkc @11:30-- Is it possible that it was an M4 and they acquired the weapon from the MIT police officer they shot?--

Hmmm. I wouldn't think an MIT police officer would have an automatic weapon, but on an earlier thread someone did confirm they are armed. It seems likely to me that one or both of the handguns could have been his.

Here is part of the conversation, "The Court: If at any time I say something you do not understand, interrupt me and say so; is that clear? Defendant: (Nods Affirmative)."

The 19-year old is charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. He is also charged with one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death.

According to the transcript, the only time he spoke during the hearing was when the judge asked if he could afford a lawyer. Here's how that part of the conversation went, "The Court: Can you afford a lawyer. Defendant: No. The Court: Let the record reflect that I believe the defendant has said, No."

A public defender was appointed to represent Tsarnaev. Before calling a recess, the judge found Tsarnaev aware and coherent of what was going on. The transcript says, "The Court: At this time, at the conclusion of the initial appearance, I find that the defendant is alert,mentally competent and lucid. He is award of the nature of the proceedings."

The .223/5.56 is not even legal to hunt deer in many states and that includes with civilian, expanding soft point rounds.

Full Metal Jacket is standard bullet construction for the military. Regardless of spin or bullet weight any FMJ non expanding round will tend to "tumble" when it hits tissue. However the tumbling essentially consists of the physics of the heavy bullet base rotating or yawing to the front when soft tissue is encountered, not literally tumbling arse over kettle, over and over.
Under the right conditions of range and speed it's common for the bullet to pass right through the tissue making little more than a .223 channel through the flesh, like the 22LR that ended up next to Reagan's heart and that he didn't even know had hit him.
Hitting bone is another story of course.

Matt-- olden day stuff. my old teammate 'Grandpa' told me that he went through USMC basic training with M-14s, and there was limited auto fire training. In the hands of every recruit in his platoon, the M-14 on full auto became strictly an anti-aircraft weapon.

I tried to tell Jimmy that it is the high sales tax states that want the new income, and low tax states don't. So if I buy something from a WY retailer to be shipped to me in MD or MA, it is MD or MA that wants the money.

the States can't so impose, unless the seller has a 'physical presence' in their state

That was my point. The seller has a presence in the seller's state. Rather than making the seller collect taxes for the dozens if not hundreds of jurisdictions to which he sells (based on the location of the buyer), which I understand to be the proposal, would it not make more sense for a state to tax the seller directly? I hesitate to suggest it because I'd rather not make it easy for the tax hounds.

Once the data is available, the high tax states will nail you for a property or "use" tax. Somehow we don't have the technology available to keep track of Mahometan jihadi nutters but your purchase of a TV in Wyoming will get you a Maryland tax bill before you've finished reading the instruction manual.

It's not "command and control" to them. They view it as "just a little off the top" and it can't hurt anyone. They just don't realize, ever, that all those layers add up in a hurry. And then they'll lie and guilt bomb to get their hands on the money.

JimmyK- OK got it. You're right... so what's the point? (other than a payoff to Amazon?) This is the infrastructure to implement VAT and financial transaction taxes for the Federal Government. Leviathan is getting hungry.. and it will be fed.

Small business simply does not fit into the reimagined economy. It is essentially oligarchical except each oligarch gets close to a monopoly on the designated "needed" product or service. That also ensures everyone is a political player and goes along with all the relevant details.

It won't work but by the time the full vision was supposed to be visible the West, especially the US, would have trashed itself. And I am now quite sure it is coming from the Mainland leadership at this point coupled to that criminal outfit on donated property by the East River. It's been a long but conclusive morning.

Last week, after the Boston bombing, over at Rantburg I made a comment saying they should look for the culprits at the cultural center that had been in the news out of Boston. The place was built on land sold below cost by the city, and given all sorts of favors and waivers and preferences. I think another religion had tried to buy the land and blocked, even.

There is another side to the sales tax argument which is the age old one of the advantage it gives out of state retailers over locals.
Wasn't that big a deal when it was only catalog retailers using snail mail deliveries but the rise of the internet made online retailing much more of a threat.

So there is a level playing field aspect to it but any tax makes a market more inefficient so the losers over all and as always will be the people and freedom and the winners will be the state and its favored clients.

One president is falling. One president is rising. Now their paths have crossed. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, former-President Bush now has the exact same job approval rating, 47 percent, as President Obama, 47 percent.

Alice:Hmmm. I wouldn't think an MIT police officer would have an automatic weapon, but on an earlier thread someone did confirm they are armed. It seems likely to me that one or both of the handguns could have been his.